The tragedy marked “one of the darkest moments in history” in KwaZulu-Natal province, the regional government said in a tweet.
“We join the families in mourning the lives we lost as a result of the torrential rains,” the government wrote. “We want to congratulate the disaster management teams on their tireless work to evacuate the affected communities.
The floods hit KwaZulu-Natal, which includes the coastal city of Durban. Roads cracked and gave way to deep cracks, and a huge pile of shipping containers collapsed in muddy waters, news agencies reported.
A bridge near Durban was swept away, leaving people stranded on both sides.
KwaZulu-Natal has experienced extreme rain since Monday in what the provincial government called “one of the worst weather storms in our country’s history” in a statement posted on Facebook.
“The heavy rains that have fallen on our land in the last few days have caused indescribable chaos and unleashed enormous damage to life and infrastructure,” the statement said.
The provincial government later said it was continuing to work with the national government to ensure that aid would be provided to all those affected.
Teams have worked to evacuate people in areas affected by “mudslides, floods and structural collapses of buildings and roads,” Sifo Hlomouka, a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Executive Committee for Joint Management and Traditional Affairs, said on Twitter on Tuesday.
“Heavy rains have affected power lines in many municipalities, with technical teams working around the clock to restore power,” Hlomuka added.
Flooded power plants were inaccessible in the severely affected eThekwini municipality, Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda told reporters, while water mains were also damaged.
The local government has asked private and religious institutions to co-operate in emergency operations and has asked South African national defense forces for air support, he said.
Extreme weather comes just months after heavy rains and floods hit other parts of South Africa, with three tropical cyclones and two tropical storms in just six weeks since the end of January. There were 230 reported deaths and 1 million affected.
Researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) project, which analyzes the extent to which the climate crisis may have contributed to an extreme weather event, have found that climate change makes these events more likely.
“Again, we see people with the least responsibility for climate change bearing the brunt of the impact,” said Frederick Otto of the WWA on Tuesday at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, referring to earlier storms. South Africa.
“Rich countries must honor their commitments and increase much-needed funding to adapt and compensate victims of extreme events caused by climate change with losses and damages,” she added.
This is expected to be a major obstacle to the next international climate talks, the COP27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.
Scientists have warned that the world should try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures about 200 years ago to prevent some of the irreversible effects of climate change. The earth is already about 1.2 degrees warmer.
In Southeast Africa, warming of 2 degrees is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of torrential rains and floods and increase the intensity of severe tropical cyclones, which are associated with heavier rainfall.
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